Teens Feared, Loved an Ax-Wielding Hermit
A 1950s urban legend from Frederick County was nostalgically recounted by Alyce Weinberg in her classic Spirits of Frederick, first published in 1979. A manic ghost, a white-bearded, long-haired, scraggly male with beady eyes, put in an appearance about twenty years ago on Gold Mine Road near Clifton in Braddock Heights. He only showed himself to kids, and they talked among themselves of how they teased and tormented and mocked the recluse. It was a game to them. They would tantalize the grisly [sic] old man by sneaking up on him and poking him with sticks until he chased them, sidling crabwise, brandishing an axe. They called him Hatchet Harry. Gold Mine Road was only a wagon trail then that led to a stream and a deserted caved-in mine shaft that was impossible to find in the dense underbrush, though maybe Hatchet Harry had. No grown-ups ever caught up with this character, no matter what time of the day or night they went to hunt for him. Progress has changed the old dirt ro...